Kindred Spirits
by Oreramar
Summary: Yuffie thought of Leon, struggling to fix the Gummi ship. She thought of her ‘mission’ to find Gummi blocks. She thought of the time constraint on said mission. “Eh, sure,” she shrugged. “Not like I got much else to do.”


It started with a sudden jolt of the gummi ship and a strangled shout from the cockpit. Actually, Yuffie mused, one might even say that it started when they were forced to fly into a load of asteroids to lose a swarm of heartless ships. Or even when Leon decided they needed to make a quick trip back to Traverse Town. And if you really wanted to get technical, you might even say that it all started with Ansem's experimentation with hearts and the creation of the heartless themselves.

But that was splitting hairs, and Yuffie only did that when she was either bored or testing the edge of her shuriken.

The gummi ship banged against something else and started to list wildly to the side. Yuffie couldn't _feel_ it tipping, thanks to the artificial gravity, but she could see the asteroids outside the porthole zip upwards, which meant that her side of the ship was tipping downwards. The thought made her stomach constrict and she clapped a hand to her mouth with a gulping sound. Normally gummi ships moved smoothly enough that she didn't feel motion sick, but the way it was lurching about now…

Yuffie decided on a tactical retreat and scurried as far away from the window as she could get, making a mental note to give Leon a talk about his flying abilities.

_Crunch!_

"Son of - ! _Yuffie!_ Get up here now!"

Leon didn't usually yell (heck, he didn't talk much at all), so Yuffie decided it was worth stepping up the speed of her usual saunter just a notch. After all, ninjas don't just run at anyone's beck and call.

So it was several moments later when she entered the cockpit to find Leon wrestling with the controls and the ship lurching unevenly toward a world that seemed to be made of an island crossed by rainbows.

"Strap in," Leon ordered abruptly. "We're landing."

"Where?" Yuffie looked out of the front of the ship, trying desperately to focus on the growing blotch of blue and green and rainbow-glowy-light ahead instead of on the increasingly erratic movements that made her stomach twist and flop and try to jump-kick its way out of her throat. "That thing up ahead?"

Leon grunted. "It's called _Neverland_."

Yuffie flopped herself on her seat and buckled up. "I knew that."

--

Out of all the worlds in existence, one could easily argue that the island of Neverland ranked among the most beautiful. The entire world had a vivid quality that you usually only found in touched-up photos or imaginative paintings, and more than that, the air itself made you feel young and alive. The sun was warm, the sky perfect, even the clouds looked cheerful…which was something rather new for Yuffie, because the clouds of Traverse Town and, more recently, Hollow Bastion held a more gloomy feel about them, and that's not even getting into the character of _the_ Cloud, himself.

_What kind of a name _is_ Cloud, anyway?_ Yuffie mused from her perch on a (truly ginormous) fallen tree, watching Leon prowl around their battered, smoking ship. _Was his mother obsessed with weather or something?_

She swung her legs, absently drumming her heels into the bark beneath her, and distractedly mused on what sort of names Cloud's siblings or cousins may have ended up with, if he even ever had any siblings or cousins.

"Yuffie."

Leon's calm voice jerked her from her thoughts faster than a Chocobo could bolt after you stole one of its tail feathers. She looked up to see Leon jerk her head in an obvious 'get over here or I'll get even moodier than usual' gesture, so she stretched leisurely, swung her legs one last time, and vaulted off of the horizontal tree trunk to tumble to the ground. The former mercenary didn't so much as blink at her gymnastics.

"Yeah, Squall?"

"It's Leon."

"Sure. Hey, I just thought of something. A squall's like a storm, right? Like, as in weather? Hey, Squall, are you related to Cloud? Cause I think that 'Squall's just the sort of name Cloud's brother might have if he had a brother. That or 'Gale', but 'Squall' sounds cooler. And 'Lightning' if it was a sister. What d'you think?"

Leon made a movement as though he were about to bang his head against the side of the Gummi ship, but didn't follow through with it. Pity, really. It had been _months_ since Yuffie had managed to induce the stoic warrior to try bashing his head in from sheer annoyance. Perhaps she was getting out of practice…?

"No, we aren't related. And my name is Leon. Yuffie, stop for a minute and focus."

Yuffie briefly considered ignoring him in favor of further aggravation, but in the end let it go enough to snap a jaunty salute.

"A-okay. I'm focusing, but you only get a minute, and I've already started counting. You're down to about forty-eight, forty-seven, forty-six seconds now, so get talking quick!"

Leon gave her a Look, one of the ones guaranteed to burn the black right out of a small heartless at ten paces, but extensive practice allowed her to roll it right off her shoulders like water off her shuriken. Oh, yeah. She was good.

"Our right wing has taken damage, and I want to fix it before we go any further. Gummi blocks are best, but if you can't find any, I should be able to rig something that will last us until we hit the next world where we're sure to find something to repair the ship with."

"So now I go look for Gummis? Hey, great, I'm awesome at that! 'Course, I'm awesome at everything, but I'm _super-_awesome at finding stuff like Gummi blocks. And materia. Yeah. That stuff and me, we're like magnets – we _gravitate_ toward each other. I learned that word last week, from Aerith. _Gravitate_. Cool, huh?"

This time, Leon resorted to pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Yuffie bounced on her toes, grinning at him.

"Just…go find some Gummis. And be back by nightfall."

Yuffie whooped and ran for the trees, swinging her shuriken to clear thick brush from her path.

"And _don't provoke the locals!"_

By the time Leon finished his sentence, the ninja was well out of earshot.

--

"Right. Gummi blocks. Now, if I were a Gummi block, where would I be?" Yuffie paused thoughtfully in her trek through the jungle. She vaguely remembered Merlin once telling her about some theory or another where the Gummi blocks used to be a wall around worlds, but she hadn't been paying attention at the time, so that was useless. And if this entire world were jungle, it wasn't too likely that she'd just stumble across a convenient store that sold the things like Cid had.

That line of thought hadn't led anywhere, so Yuffie aborted it and hopped on another. "In that case," she mused aloud, looking up at a sliver of sky visible through the treetops, "let's say that Gummi blocks are like Materia. You find Materia around Mako sources, on monsters, or in people's pockets. And there aren't any Gummi fountains or anything like that, so I either need to find a few monsters or some people!"

Feeling very pleased with herself, Yuffie bounced off in search of something to beat up and rob (though not necessarily in that order).

She found something very quickly.

"Over there! One of those _kids_!"

Yuffie whirled around to face the pair of pirates (she knew they were there the whole time, of course, she just hadn't shown it 'cause she didn't want her Awesome to freak them out – she was so considerate of normal people sometimes!). The big one drew a cutlass, while the short guy with the bad haircut raised a whistle to his lips and blew a shrill note with it. Yuffie just grinned. Even if they didn't have any Gummi blocks, chances were good that Yuffie would be getting away with a good bit of treasure – these did seem to be _pirates_, after all.

"Hi, guys! Listen, hate to talk and run, but I'm in a hurry. I need Gummi blocks for this really moody guy and if I don't hurry up and get some he's gonna go all broody and monotone-grunting-communication on me and that's just a pain to deal with, so can ya help me out real fast?"

Yuffie finished off with the most dazzling smile she could muster, which seemed to have worked, because the two pirates just stared at her, blinking in a slow, confused way. When their condition didn't seem to improve any, Yuffie wondered if she'd used a few too many too-big words on them – perhaps they didn't know 'monotone'? Yuffie sure hadn't until she'd met Broody and Moody, and then she learned that word real fast.

Yuffie eyed the pirates for a moment longer. Ah, no matter, she finally decided, slipping around and filching a few pouches off of their belts. They didn't even budge, apparently still trying to work through just what she'd said. Yuffie stuck her loot in her deepest pockets, figuring she'd inspect it later, and walked away jauntily, swinging her shuriken and whistling a randomly-chosen tune.

"H-hey…waitaminute…we wuz _robbed_!"

"Yer...yer right! You! You, stop right there! Thief!"

Cursing their bad timing, Yuffie looked over her shoulder at the two pirates and broke into a sprint.

_WHAM!_

"_Whoof_!"

Quick as a flash, the two pirates caught up with Yuffie and hauled her back into a standing position to face the biggest pirate of the lot. Yuffie stared at his paunch in disbelief.

"Gawd, have you ever heard of dieting? Or maybe exercise? 'Cause that can't be healthy. I mean, really, I bounced off you like you're made of rubber. Really cheap rubber. And – hey, hey, you with the ugly mug! No, the other one! You drop my shuriken right now! I mean it!"

The pirate's only response was to glance up at her and then return to his inspection of the weapon. Incensed, Yuffie kicked out at one of the pirates holding her, but he evaded it and twisted her arm hard behind her. The ninja gasped and blinked tears out of her eyes.

"Sneaky little runt," the one behind her muttered.

"Sneaky," another agreed, "and fast."

"What should we do with her?"

"I say we tie 'er up and drop 'er offa cliff," the shortest one grumbled.

"Hnn…let's take 'er t' th' cap'n first. Quick whelp like 'er…Hook may be willin' t' make 'er an offer."

Yuffie shifted experimentally and quickly mapped out just where the pirate behind her was standing. If she could twist _just so_, flip a kick into his crotch, do a handspring _that way_, and a flying side kick into that one's head to get her shuriken back…

It just might work.

Without alerting her captors, Yuffie took a quick breath and tensed her legs in preparation.

_One_, she counted in her head. _Two…_

"EAT THIS, PIRATES!"

The voice came from overhead and all the pirates in Yuffie's line of sight looked up to find it. She didn't waste time for her own curiosity however; quick as a snake the young ninja slipped downward, twisted out of the arm-lock, and seriously jeopardized one pirate's ability to spawn children.

She considered it a favor to this world.

The rest of her planned technique went off without a hitch, and one dislocated jaw later, Yuffie had her shuriken firmly in hand. Grinning, she whirled around to face her other attackers, only to see the lot of them engaging in a crazy game of cat and mouse…or maybe cat and bird?

Then again, if that boy flipping about off tree trunks overhead was the bird, then the 'cat' was hugely outclassed.

Not that 'fairness' ever stopped Yuffie from joining in a game – especially if it were unfair in her favor, and especially if there might be a little something to be gained afterward. Whooping what she affectionately called her '_blood-curdling-kiyai-of-doom_,' Yuffie sprang forward, ran up the nearest tree, and back-flipped off of it to slam both feet into a pirate's back. She rode the poor man all the way to the ground, springing off at the last moment to further propel him into the packed earth.

Spinning, Yuffie flung her shuriken at another's head. He ducked, losing nothing more than his ridiculous hat (which reminded Yuffie a little bit of Aladdin's, only with a really cool tassel, and it's a pity the thing was shredded now because it would've looked great with her scarf). That was just the reaction the ninja was after, however; she jumped up, drove both heels into the man's broad shoulders, and catapulted herself forward to the tree her weapon had embedded itself in.

By the time Yuffie jerked her shuriken from the bark and jumped back down to the ground, the pirates were in a full-scale retreat and the green-clad boy stood in the middle of the clearing alone. He sheathed the tiny knife he had been using at his side, then jumped up into the air and crowed. And it wasn't the kind of crowing where you're just shouting happily because you just managed to steal a whole set of mastered materia and get away scot free with it – it was the kind of crowing you always heard in the morning until you managed to hunt that dang wild featherbag down and wring its neck for supper. It made Yuffie's hands twitch and her mouth water for Aerith's roast chicken.

"Oh, yeah!" the boy shouted. "That's right! Run, you cowards! Ha!"

Then, quick as green lightning, the stranger had dashed up to Yuffie and stood practically in her face, still grinning triumphantly.

"Hey! I've never seen you around here before – you all right? Didja see me take on those pirates? I did pretty good, saving your life and all, huh?"

Yuffie stuck one side of her shuriken in the ground to better plant both fists on her hips. "_Saved my life?_ Are you kidding me? I had everything under control before you came blasting in there – and then you drove them all off too soon! I didn't get to pick their pockets or anything! Just who do you think you are?"

The boy imitated her pose and scowl. Yuffie was irritated to notice that he stood a bit taller than her. Not for the first time, or for the last, she cursed her 'shortness' genes.

"I'm Peter Pan, the Leader of the Lost Boys!"

"Well, I'm the Great Ninja Yuffie Kisaragi!"

They stared at each other for a full ten seconds before they both burst out laughing. With a grin to match her own, Peter came around to Yuffie's left side and slung an arm over her shoulder.

"C'mon," he said. "Lemme show you around the island."

Yuffie thought of Leon, struggling to fix the Gummi ship. She thought of her 'mission' to find Gummi blocks. She thought of the time constraint on said mission.

"Eh, sure," she shrugged. "Not like I got much else to do."

--

"You can _fly_ here?"

"Yeah." Peter swooped lower, so low that Yuffie could see the forest floor through gaps in the treetops as they rushed by. Somehow, despite Peter's scrawny build, he carried Yuffie on his back like she was a piece of fluffy white cloud that had somehow attached itself to the flying boy's shoulders. "It's easy. Want to learn?"

There was only one possible answer to that.

"_Ifrit_, yes!"

"'kay," Peter said, banking lightly. Yuffie clung tighter to his shoulders and neck. Not that she was afraid of falling – of course not! But her airsickness had only been held at bay for so long because of the rush of wind in her face, and she didn't need any visual reminders that her stomach didn't _like_ this sort of travel. "I was just about to show you my home, and the Lost Boys, anyhow. You'll need Tink's help to fly, and she should be there right now."

Lost Boys? Tink? Yuffie wasn't sure which to ask about first.

Peter beat her to the punch.

"So, any reason you're in Neverland? I'm pretty sure I've not seen you around before."

"Huh? Oh, yeah. See, me and a friend…only he's not really a friend, gawd, I think Leon's too moody to have _friends_…he'd probably just call me something high-blown and fancy like _comrade-in-arms_ or something that really just means '_I'm getting along with her until I can get rid of her'_…anyhow, we had a little problem and so we ended up here and now we gotta find some Gummi blocks. Know where any are?"

"Dunno. What do they look like?"

"Kinda hard to explain." Yuffie gave it a try anyhow. "They're all sorts of shapes and sizes and colors, so that won't help. I guess I'll have to go with how they feel instead of how they look. They're kinda…rubbery. Smooth and sort of soft-feeling even if they look chunky and sharp-edged. And you can squish or stretch them just a _teeny_ bit, and then they'll snap right back into shape again."

"Huh." Peter flew on in silence for a few heartbeats longer, then shook his head. The red feather in his cap tickled Yuffie's ear. "I don't _think_ I've seen anything like that around here, but it can't hurt to look. Me and the boys, we have a whole chest full of treasure we stole from the pirates, plus more besides. We can look there for this stuff you need."

"Hey, thanks!" Yuffie was genuinely surprised. Friendly or not, if Peter had come around her world looking for something she wasn't sure about, she wouldn't have volunteered to show him her materia collection right off the bat. Perhaps she wouldn't snitch any of his treasure, just to be nice.

Yeah, she'd do that…or rather, _not_ do that.

Aerith would be so proud.

Moments later, Peter swooped lower than before, gliding in to land lightly on one of the upper branches of an old, dead tree. Yuffie dropped from his back, checked that her shuriken was still firmly strapped on, and gave the boy a questioning look.

"Here we are," Peter said with his never-fading smile, and then reached down and tugged at the edge of a knothole. To Yuffie's surprise, it swung open as though on hinges. Peter cupped a hand around his mouth and crowed down into the hole.

Yuffie suddenly realized how hungry she was.

"HEY BOYS! Come out here – there's someone I want you to meet!"

A distant echo of noise like answering shouts rose from the knothole, which Peter then shut with satisfaction. "Here they come," he said, though it was thoroughly unnecessary as Yuffie's super-superior ninja hearing was already picking up sounds of scuffling and rampaging feet from deep, deep inside the tree. "Now I'll just get you down, okay?"

"No need," Yuffie replied, eyeing a nearby branch. She looked up and shot Peter a quick wink. "See you at the bottom!"

Whooping happily, she launched herself from her perch and set off on a mad, swinging tumble from branch to dangling rope to branch again. By the time she hit the ground, adrenaline was thrumming in her ears, and she couldn't resist popping out of her forward somersault in a (hopefully) impressive stance.

Mere heartbeats later, a small crowd of young boys in what seemed to be those fuzzy animal pajamas you see in some stores and occasionally on a poor, traumatized child in public came scampering out of an array of knothole-doors and other hidden entrances around the tree. Yuffie dropped her arms from their spread position and huffed. What rotten timing.

The children – Yuffie figured they _had_ to be pretty young, because not one of them could have stood more than shoulder-high against her – screeched to a halt right in front of her and stared.

_That's right, midgets. Stand and gaze in awe at my aura of sheer awesome…_

"_ANOTHER _girl?" the one in the bear costume whined suddenly. En masse, the entire group whirled to face Peter, who had set down on the grass just to their left, leaving Yuffie to gape incredulously at the overstuffed teddy bear who, it seemed, had just essentially insulted females in general, and Yuffie in particular.

"Peter!" Tubby Teddy continued, but was cut off before he could say more by twins in raccoon costumes.

"You always –"

"Bring home –"

"_Girls_," they ended in chorus.

"They're no fun!"

"All they ever do is cry –"

"And play house –"

"And spoil _real_ fun," rabbit-boy added, apparently not to be outdone.

"And they –"

"All right, _stop right there_!" Enough was enough, and Yuffie had just taken more than triple her 'enough' level, and she wished for a moment that she had a good Bolt materia, or perhaps a Summon (just to scare them, she justified herself, an ingrained habit developed by spending too much time with holier-than-thou-Aerith and party-pooper-Leon), but all she had was her shuriken and the words tripping over each other in a rush from brain to mouth. "You narrow-minded little pieces of chocobo crud, it's time you learned a thing or two about – "

"She said a bad word!" The skunk suddenly squeaked. Yuffie stopped short, wondering where this alleged 'bad word' had cropped up. Thinking back, it didn't _feel_ like she had been channeling Cid (and _Leviathan, _if that wasn't a scary thing to imagine!), and she was pretty certain that none of his more choice expressions hadn't slipped out…Planet, she hadn't even gotten good and hot into her rant yet!

'_Crud_,' perhaps?

"Er…I…" Yuffie took a good look around. Each and every boy – including Peter himself – was staring at her in a mixture of horror and adoration. Her ego swelled just enough at the sight of all those shining eyes that she could just about forgive their earlier slight. Realizing the chance for a quick object lesson, Yuffie struck a quick pose with fists on hips and head held high. "Y'see? Girls are just as good as boys. Sometimes even better."

"Well…"

Yuffie fixed the daring boy with a Look – the one she had learned from Tifa and usually reserved for the more unruly sort of monsters and heartless, and occasionally Leon when she was in a bad mood (though it usually bounced off him).

"Yeah, I guess," the fat one amended quickly.

"We're gonna get along great," Peter suddenly crowed – and this time it wasn't the chicken-type crow, but the cheerful-shout-type. He swooped over to Yuffie with speed fit to make a ninja proud and draped an arm over her shoulder, mussing her short hair. She yelped a bit and shoved Peter off – he tumbled away in midair, coming to a cross-legged hover as casual as though he were sitting on solid ground. "Boys, this is the Great Ninja Yuffie…how'd you say the name again?"

"Kisaragi."

"Right. Anyway." Peter clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Where's Tink?"

"Tink?" The rabbit-costumed boy thought for a moment, then jerked his thumb over one shoulder, back at the dead tree. "Tink's inside. Why? We gonna teach her to fly?"

"Yep. HEY, TINK! TINK-ER-BELL!"

A bright streak of gold light flew from the other side of the tree, trailing sparkles as it flew. The thing jerked to a halt in front of Peter and started making bell sounds. Yuffie's first impression was that this "Tink" was an unusually bright firefly with one of those tiny jinglebells you see during the winter holidays tied around its neck (do fireflies even have necks, she wondered), which didn't make much sense, since there was no way a _firefly_ could make a person shuck off gravity like a too-heavy overcoat.

"Yeah, sorry, Tink, but we need some help. You see, Yuffie here wants to fly and we can't do anything without –"

The ball of light flitted over to hover in front of Yuffie's nose. The ninja stared in surprise at the tiny face now examining her – and the instant she blinked, the thing she now identified as a fairy had flitted back to Peter and was making such a cacophony of high-pitched bell sounds that Yuffie could only assume it was her way of speaking. Surprisingly, Peter seemed able to understand every 'word'.

"Yeah, yeah, I know – no, I didn't – look, she's not that bad – this has nothing to do with Wendy, so would you – but, Tinkerbell! _Please_?"

The fairy let off one last chime that sounded suspiciously like a sniff of disdain. She turned and flitted reluctantly over Yuffie, who received such a death-glare that the ninja wondered if a black spot had been burned right into the middle of her forehead…which would really suck, since the Kisaragi clan never really went in for those markings and she had never really had an inclination to rebel against that particular family tradition simply because they looked so stupid.

The fairy spun in midair and flicked an arm vaguely in Yuffie's direction. A cloud of gold dust drifted over her head and settled there. Yuffie could see bits sparkling on her shoulders like a really bad case of magically-charged dandruff. A moment later, it faded from sight, but a curiously warm, light feeling was spreading through her from wherever those sparks had landed. She was so engrossed in the look and feel of the pixie dust that she didn't notice Tinkerbell streaking off in a huff.

"Now, think of happy things," Peter instructed. "Flying takes three ingredients: faith, trust, and pixie dust."

_That seems easy enough_, Yuffie thought. She went with 'cheerful' like gummi blocks went with 'bloody impossible to find when you need them.'

Which reminded her…

Yuffie thrust herself up off the ground and, at the apex of her jump, concentrated on the warm glow of a materia raid gone right. To her utter joy, her mid-air position held.

"So. Gummi blocks. You said something about treasure stashes?"

"Right!" Peter swooped higher by extending his arms and legs. Yuffie imitated the movement and found herself rocketing through the air. "Follow me!"

--

Leon watched as two large, dark shapes rose into the sky far across the island. As one, they wheeled around and flew off into the cloud cover. The former mercenary frowned slightly in thought.

_Too large to be birds, and no flapping motions_. He wondered if there was an unusual strain of heartless or even native monsters in this world. Hopefully not; the day had been aggravating enough without dealing with random attacks. All the same, Leon checked to make sure his gunblade was within easy reach before returning to the task of repairing what he could of their ship without the extra blocks he needed.

What the hell was taking Yuffie so long?

--

"Any luck?"

Yuffie shook her head, looking over the heap of treasure in front of her. Mounds of gold coins, precious gems, and curious trinkets lay on the cave's cold stone floor, but not one chunk of color was of gummi material. She sighed and stuck her hands in her pockets just to keep them out of temptation's way.

Peter drifted along on his back, hands behind his head in a relaxed pose. Turning his head toward her, he asked in a curious tone, "So, what do you need these gummi things for anyway?"

"Oh, my friend and I, we're from a different world, y'see. And Gummi's pretty much the only thing you can use to get from one world to another. Only our ship is damaged, so we need some more to fix it."

Peter flipped over onto his stomach, a strange thing to see while he was in midair. "A ship that flies between worlds? Gosh, that's easy. Captain Hook's pirate ship can do that. It's made of wood, but I bet it'll work just fine."

The gears in Yuffie's head began to spin a bit faster than before. Which, in her humble opinion, was saying something. "In that case, we just have to steal some wood off the side of a pirate's ship?"

Immortal boy and irrepressible ninja stared at each other for just one moment. The spark of an idea flared above both heads simultaneously.

"Let's go!"

--

The sky blazed orange overhead in a spectacular sunset, visible even over the treeline around the crash-made clearing Leon waited in. He stood perfectly still, never fidgeting…even when he finally caught sight of Yuffie flying in alongside a boy clothed in green. Both carried great armloads of splintered wooden planks.

The two landed alongside the gummi ship and dumped their burdens on the scorched grass. Yuffie offered Leon a cocky salute.

"Mission a success, Squall!"

Leon raised an eyebrow, but decided not to correct Yuffie's use of his old name in favor of a more pressing question.

"I believe I sent you out for gummi blocks."

"Yep. So?"

"Yuffie. That's wood."

"It'll work fine. Peter here says that this…ah, this particular kind of wood can be used to fly across worlds just like gummi." The boy in green – Peter – looked over from where he was inspecting their ship. He caught Leon's eye and gave him a cheery wave. Leon was hit by the sudden, horrifying impression of a male version of Yuffie.

"I don't want to know where you two got this, do I?"

Yuffie rocked back on her heels, eyes on the sky. "Hmm. Nope. Probably not."

--

On the other side of the island, a pathetic figure knelt on a wooden deck, hunched over and sobbing loudly. The man slammed his left fist down, remembering that he didn't _have_ a left fist just in time to realize that the metal hook which had replaced it was now embedded firmly in the wood. Instead of fighting to free it, he simply slumped further to lay on the gently rocking floor.

A blanket was draped over his shaking form.

"There, there, now, cap'n. It's not that bad! They on'y took a little bit, really, and it's all above the waterline. The crew'll be recovered enough to fix it in plenty of time, you'll see!"

"It's just not _fair_, Smee!" Captain Hook sobbed. "_Two_ of them! _Two_ flying brats, and this time _both_ of them were out to get me!"

Smee wasn't sure what to say to this, so he hummed something both soothing and noncommittal as he filled another hot water bottle for another sprained back.

Hook raised his head and wailed at the sky. "What did I ever do to deserve _this_?"


End file.
